Marijuana Leaf Tucking Method

By now you’ve learned from my blogs that autoflowering strains are slightly different to grow. They have their own little secrets that you need to know to truly grow them successfully or you’ll be one of those people that believes these unique strains suck. Experienced growers have to unlearn almost everything they know about growing marijuana when growing autoflowering strains because some of these suggestions go against good growing techniques. But one technique not to be missed is cannabis leaf tucking.

Last time I explained the importance and possible reasons why you don’t want to transplant your autoflowering marijuana strains.

Autoflowering Advice

Now we’re going to take the scissors out the hands of growers who love to top their marijuana plants and remove some fan leaves during vegetative to create a better canopy. I know this sounds crazy to growers who style their plants with a set of shears, but do not trim fan leaves on autoflowering plants. Do not top or low stress train your autoflowering plants!

Their quick growth can’t handle the shock of removing their tops. Instead of creating a fabulous canopy you’ll ruin them. I love working a pair shears during the veg phase, but autoflowering strains do their own thing. It takes restraint when watching their growth because the temptation to trim a leaf here or there for better light penetration is difficult to resist.

I’ve learned instead of trimming off fan leaves to simply tuck them behind developing branches. The leaf tuck method doesn’t stress your plant like removing fan leaves does and it’s as effective at bringing light to lower branches as removing them.

It’s easy to tuck leaves behind branches, but I go that one extra step and use training wire to bend the leaf. Instead of bending branches you may bend leaves to make way for better light. Attach a loop around the leaf and slightly pull it back and secure the wire to the plant stem.

The branches will begin to poke through the space you made and quickly surpass the leaf. It’s a different way to make a canopy, but it is an effective one. Once those lower branches catch the light they’re going to take off and best the plant does not have to recover from stress of leaf removal.

This method may also be employed for non autoflowering seeds. There’s no reason not to do the leaf tuck method – especially considering the plant doesn’t have a stress factor from the chop. By adding some training wire to your leaf tuck it becomes similar to a low stress training method without the stress.

Matt Mernagh is the author of Marijuana Smoker’s Guidebook: The Easy Way to Identify and Enjoy Marijuana Strains. On sale now from Amazon, Urban Outfitters or iTunes.